Best Golf Clubs For Players with Moderate Swing Speeds

What are the best golf clubs in 2025 for players with slower, more moderate swing speeds? In this 2nd Swing Thoughts podcast segment, 2nd Swing Master Fitter Jake Montgomery shares his fitting insights into which clubs he’s seen a lot of success with in fittings for these types of golfers. Jake shares his best drivers, fairway woods, hybrids and irons for golfers with moderate swing speeds and why these golf clubs are such a great fit for their game. He also shares some shafts that can help players get the most out of their game.

00:00 Introduction
00:25 Best Driver
03:56 Best Fairway Woods
06:45 Best Hybrids
08:14 Best Irons

The 2nd Swing Thoughts podcast, presented by 2nd Swing Golf, covers anything and everything in golf equipment and club fitting. The 2nd Swing Thoughts will feature experts in the golf industry sharing insights and latest trends in golf clubs and club fittings. 2nd Swing Thoughts will also cover the latest in professional golf.

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[Music] we are in the studio with Jake Montgomery fitting manager at Minneapolis talking about the best clubs for certain swing speeds We just talked about high speed players and now we wanted to cover the low speed players Um and throughout 2025 Jake you’ve obviously fit a ton of both Um let’s start with the drivers
Yep the best drivers that you’ve fit for players that maybe have maybe low or moderate speeds and the best success you’ve had there Yes I mean I would say before I get to like the standard drivers I just want to say if you are on the older side of things or you’re swinging really really slow these days try a mini driver We can loft those things really really high which again just gives us way more peak height I have had many examples where we are 10 to 20 yards longer with a mini driver than we are with a standard driver It’s a little shorter which gives you more control We can set the loft to 15 And the longer we keep that ball in the air the further it’s going to go So I would just keep an open mind for that when you kind of come in for a driver fitting
Interesting And and and before we go to the actual the standard drivers have you noticed a a big difference in like forgiveness
with you know going to a smaller head or is that really not an issue if a smaller shaft and they can a ton
um I mean forgiveness really is just ball speed
Yeah
I haven’t seen a huge drop off when they’re hitting it on the toe or the heel on a mini driver compared to a standard model Um and especially I mean for a lot of the players it it looks more like a driver that they’ve been used to playing most of their life Um so it it can often times be really familiar for them
Okay Interesting That’s uh that’s actually not something I expected to hear from you to start this off here but um so many drivers are are a strong consideration for those players And that makes a lot of sense the way you explain it You can get the driver up to
13 14 15° and you know get a shaft that’s a little bit more
it’s shorter and you can control it the club face a little bit more But with those standard drivers or you know what you would consider today you know driver um any model in particular stick out
Yeah So the the G440 HL build where there’s a lighter weight with the Alta quick shaft in there that is far and away standard length driverwise the best one that we’ve seen Um the components in it are really really light which allows you to pick up a couple miles an hour club head speed
It is a fairly high spin driver which like I said we often times want more spin for this player because it helps keep the ball up in the air They’re not going to lose a whole ton of roll up but you might gain 10 yards of carry
Yeah
Um the other one I would say is a option would be the Titus GT1 Again lighter headweight build especially when we can change the weights out in that driver Um and then they also offer a couple different 3540 g shafts in their fitting matrix as well where we can just kind of make as light a weight build as possible add a lot of loft and just kind of keep keep the ball up in the air as much as possible I’d say another area for this if you just looking price doesn’t matter You want to gain as much distance as possible try the Ventus White
I was going to bring that up too
I cannot tell you how many players I have had where I put that in and we immediately gained 10 yards It is so stinking good
Yeah I mean I I was going to bring that up if you didn’t So it’s actually it’s funny that you were thinking the same thing because the so the Vujakura Aventus lineup has been super successful for several several years now
but it’s primarily catered towards higher speed players or it has up until 2025
Yep
Now they’ve got this uh this Ventus white new new color I guess or color category for them that they haven’t had before this year
Light lightweight design uh for you know slow swing speed players
Mhm And uh I’ve only heard awesome things uh from the fitters So that’s something to consider with you know and with the drivers especially it’s um you know one of those driver heads with that driver shaft and if you’re a light or moderate speed player maybe you’re losing some distance or maybe you just
you’re just don’t swing it very fast and you want to gain that it’s probably the way to go there So now in in talking the fairywoods I I think I I have an idea of where you might go with this as well because this it goes along with your conversation about mini drivers and what you brought up in the loft
I feel like if you’re in this category of slow to moderate speed a 15 degree 3wood probably isn’t the play for you So talk about fairwoods and kind of go what models have you seen here maybe you’re fitting them into five or even seven woods
Yes So I mean if you feel like you’ve lost 20 yards on your driver you do not need a 3-wood Uh loft is the reason that it’s not going as far anymore Um we need to get that ball up in the air and keep it there Fivewood for this player is going to be as low as I’m going We might start at sevenwood go sevenwood ninewood into hybrids
Um it all just depends on launch conditions If you are naturally shallower and you don’t swing down on it a lot and you you deliver a lot of dynamic loft 18 degrees would be more than fine But if we’re a little steeper on it we’re swinging across 71’s going to be your best friend It’s going to get you in a launch where you want So for most players I’m looking for their fairway wood to launch anywhere from 11 to 15° All depends on speed Um and then spin window ideally in like the 3500 to 4500 window I don’t care what loft is on the club I just want to find the club that helps us do that
Um and then yeah ninewoods have been awesome They land so soft They go really high in the air but there’s enough of a loft difference between the seven and the nine that there is a difference in the distance Yeah Because for a lot of these players too the five the seven and the three
can all go the same distance The five and the seven will carry further The three would roll most of the way but the total is almost exactly the same
When you get into that ninewood there is more of a distance sorry distance there
Um that allows us to kind of properly gap that top end of the bag And then I would say brandwise Ping and surprisingly this year Callaway has been great in the high lofted trailways
Now because not all the brands even offer like a 9wood to be fit I know Ping is one and I know is Callaway one Call has an 11wood even So they they got you fit this year
Uh one
Okay
I’ve sold one
All right
Um it was to a woman that came in who she just hates hybrids So we just wanted to iron set into woods
Now how many woods did she have in the bag went 11975 Okay
So
so then we got them all
So in terms of number of head covers there Yeah And that’s actually the famous Fred Couples quote that he had said where he’s like I think every year I just add a head cover to the bag you know because he I think he has famously like
you know six of them maybe in terms of his driver fairywoods and a bunch of hybrids Um but yeah that’s that’s fascinating to hear that and that’s an important conversation I think that that golfers I think are are becoming more aware of as as the game changes and the ball spins a little bit less and things um as we move forward here So
but yeah that’s a that’s a good thing for golfers to remember Um speaking of hybrids um in the hybrid category I know you’re probably not a utility iron in this in this category So is there is there a hybrid that’s like launching really high for these type of players
so I would say one that I’ve loved so far has been the GT1 Okay Okay It’s been a It’s a kind of an oversized hybrid Center gravity is really low and really back I mean it it really is just kind of more of a cross between a fairway and a hybrid
Um that one’s been fantastic And then I mean you’re going to hear me say this a lot throughout this video Ping G440
Those hybrids are so good especially again in that HL build the high launch where you put a different weight in the back there you get that ultra quick it’s really light it spins a ton it launches really high I mean it just it is way easier to hit than a 5iron Now I have to give an antidote here about the G440 hybrids When we went down to uh Ping last it would have been December u before you know before G440 came out we were able to get there and do some testing on them Um with James Lee the fitter he actually had me hit the two hybrid Yep And then he’s like I’ll just hit the seven hybrid for fun
I hit the seven hybrid I’m not kidding you I hit it three times It was the exact same shot every time 190 carry for me which is again I’m not playing a seven hybrid in my bag But for a little bit there
I was like maybe I should play this club because I was hitting the same shot every time So there’s a consistency factor too And it was obviously launching very high for and again for my swing speed probably not the fit in the long term but
to feel it was just it was so easy to hit the shot that you’re it’s supposed to hit And so I I wanted to give that note in there too about G440 Um okay Irons now
Yep
For the slow swing speed player any models in particular that jump out at you stricksson ZXi4 great iron It spins a lot It has a very wide sole Um which again just launch the ball higher
Um but it’s very fast as well Like it it has great ball speed and ball speed just kind of keeps the ball going up in the air If you think about like launch angle is this the faster ball speed you have the higher up that ramp is going to go So the more ball speed you have the higher it gets Um again ping G440 Um that’s the one like if there were any brand where I’d say like you can play it all the way through the bag If you’re this type of player you can do ping it
They have you covered trust me
Um and then I would also say the Titleist T350 Those are three irons that are launching pretty well They produce great ball speed and they have some pretty solid spin
And I think one thing we’ve also noticed the last couple years is uh manufacturers offering an HL option So what’s is there maybe a ratio of like players that you’d put in this category getting fit to HL versus not and I guess what would what would make you offer or suggest an HL versus kind of the quoteunquote standard build
yes Sorry my my brain completely spaced there The Elite HL
that is absolutely one you must try as well That that has been a fantastic iron Um but yes Tailor Mate has an HL model for us to try Callaway does and then the Ping offers their retro head So all three of those are very very helpful uh the Mizuno
uh JPX HL as well I mean honestly as far as high launch irons go they really have you covered When I first started fitting there weren’t a whole lot of models that were designed to launch the ball really high They were just so focused on distance
And I think that they got a lot of feedback from customers and fitters saying like
“We need an iron that’s just purely meant to go high.” Um and manufacturers have listened I mean there there are tons of options out there now in HL builds where it’s more loft right um center gravity is lower that are just really built for land angle
It’s kind of like we’ve seen now I I remember talking to fitters um over the last couple years and they’re almost like frustrated because there was not
there wasn’t options for this player there was maybe a couple out there that were like you could you know retro spec the ping iron Um or maybe one or two brands had a quote unquote HL or something that there was it was a you know game improvement style iron that could launch the ball high
but there was also enough loft for this player And so now we’re seeing more of that
So that’s really cool And and again a bunch of options for this player that maybe there weren’t uh a few years ago So um but that’s you know if you’re a moderate swing speed player right in the middle you feel like you’re average There’s obviously a ton of options And the way the fitting works too is you could probably get a mix of the the clubs that we put into the high and low speed category in there So you’ll just have to go schedule that fitting talk with one of our experts um get dialed in and whether it’s online with one of our experts um in our online fitting support team or if it’s someone in the store like Jake we’ll get you dialed in and uh you’ll be playing some better golf regardless of your swing speed So Jake thanks for joining giving us the insights Uh really good stuff here Yeah thanks for having me Heat Heat [Music]